Friday, July 1, 2016

Middle-aged man macho accent

I recently read an interesting article about a woman from Texas who woke up from jaw surgery last December and now speaks with a foreign accent.  She suffers from what experts call Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS).  Apparently there have only been about 100 documented cases of FAS which was first described over 100 years ago.

FAS is a rare case in which someone afflicted with it suddenly wakes up one day speaking with a Southern twang or perhaps a British accent.  In the case of this Texas woman, she now “suffers” from speaking with a British accent.

I learned from reading this article how this syndrome usually develops after neurological damage such as a stroke and this causes the rhythm and tone of a person’s speech to suddenly change.  Experts warn us that any change in speech, such as an accent change, can be the first sign of a stroke and someone experiencing this needs to be immediately evaluated by a doctor.

FAS can be brought on by psychological reasons such as anxiety, depression or emotional trauma even if there's no physiological damage to the brain as in the case of a stroke.

Perhaps the psychological perils of being a middle-aged man can cause a similar condition in which we one day wake up from a deep sleep and ask our wives, in an older-version of Rocky Balboa vocal expression, “Yo honey, what’s for breakfast?”

If this happens, chances are we have what this middle-aged man expert calls MAMMA or middle-aged man macho accent.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

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